The moon was half full hiding behind a cloud causing the shadows in the graveyard to darken and lengthen almost as if they were reaching out towards me. I shook myself and the sense of being watched by rolling my shoulders. No one was here but me. No one was here but me, I repeated to myself but I felt like I wasn't alone. As if hundred of eyes watched me from the lurking darkness and behind every creepy weeping willow that surrounded me. Seriously, why was it always weeping willows in graveyards?
As I moved closer to my destination the air seemed to get colder and colder, mist started crawling along the damp grass and gravestones like vines. The gravestones changed as well going from shiny, polish marble and limestone to cracked dark gray stone crumbling to their own grave. The further back I went the older the tombstones, the less care and love they had received from the caretakers. My fingers whispered over the stones as I walked, my fingers tingling as if I had been touching static. The sensation slipped up my arm to my shoulder like a lover's caress.
Finally, I stopped and looked down at one of the oldest tombstones in the cemetery.
Aeronwen ferch Llywelyn
December 1, 1247 - October 31, 1267
Fy merch yn y cysgodion
My daughter in the shadows, it translated to in the modern day's dominant tongue of English. I crouched down and touched the stone with my hand, tracing the words at the bottom. The irony in those words. I had died because of it. I had been left to die because of it. Old rage burned inside my bones as I remembered that fateful day I was held captured by my father's enemies and my life threatened if my father didn't release a captured castle. The irony was no one was suppose to know who I was.
I was an illegitimate child born from a woman along the way of my father's many tracks through Wales. My mother dying had brought me to his stronghold when I had been four years old and begged him to take me in as a servant to give me a better life than I could have had in our village. He had agreed but he never claimed me.
A few of his men in his retainer suspected my identity having recognized the woman, a rare beauty in her youth though illness as wasted away her features. However, none said nothing or so I had thought. Someone had betrayed my father and I and upon him being away the stronghold was attacked and I kidnapped.
Harsh days of travel and rape I had been thrown to the ground, bruised and bloody, kneeling in the mud with a blade to my gut and the promise to kill me, his daughter, should the castle he had just captured not be released. My father, a man I had respected and even loved, stood on the parapets of the castle looking down at me, his face hard and expressionless. Again my life was threatened.
My father barked a harsh laugh and waved his hand in the air dismissing me, "kill her, she is no child of mine."
The burn of the blade across my stomach was like fire, heat and blood blossoming like a flower across my dress and again the threat was issued. Again I was denied and this time my father walked off the parapets and out of sight.
Curses echoed in my ears as I was tossed aside into the mud, "do what you like with her then kill her at dawn. Here in front of the gates so her father can watch, let us see if he will continue to deny her as he hears her screams."
I screamed, over and over. I begged for rescue. I begged for my father to save me. He never came and at dawn I died.
I sank into darkness, colder than ice burning me from the inside out then nothing. I floated in darkness unfeeling and unseeing until suddenly light burned around me, searing my lungs and eyes. I gasped, blood bubbling from my lips as I rolled and vomited black liquid. As sight, sound, smell and hearing returned to me I found myself among the dead of a battle, rotted and eaten by crows. I gagged and scrambled weakly from the pile of bodies I laid upon.
Away from death hidden among trees and away from the castle that loomed nearby, I looked down at myself finding dark dried blood on my gown but no wound across my stomach. I rubbed away the dried blood to find my skin clear. I touched my throat which had been slit at dawn but found it whole. I patted myself checking for injuries and bruises but my skin was blemish free. How long had it been, I wondered to myself. I leaned against the tree suddenly exhausted and nodded off until sunrise, the sun stinging against my eyelids.
I traveled for several days with no thirst or hunger away from the castle until I found a small village. Here I learned of my father's illegitimate child murdered by his enemies in front of the gate in the presence of most of my father's retainers. Then there had been a fierce battle for the castle in which my father's enemies had lost and run but my body was never found. Despite that my father had demanded a search for my body and a tombstone in the church's graveyard at the castle in my memory.
Hate soured in my mouth as I heard of my father shedding tears over my tombstone. Hate and rage that this man had done nothing to save me. Hadn't even given me the slight comfort of acknowledging me while I lived before I died for him. I had loved him and if he had needed my death to win this war, I would have gladly given it, but it should have been my choice, my sacrifice not his. He should have claimed me as his daughter on the parapets as I knelt before the gate and begged my forgiveness that he could not rescue me. Then I would have accepted my death because then I would have known he had loved me.
Years went by and I watched in the shadows as my father's legacy unfolded. I was truly his daughter in the shadows. I had learned many new things over those years. I didn't age. I couldn't die and I had tried several times. I could walk around silent and unseen if I wished it. I didn't need to eat or drink but I could if I wished. I had been frightened for a bit that I had turned into a vampire, a monster of the night, a tale from across the lands but I had no thirst for blood so soon dismissed it. Nor was I a ghost as I could talk and interact with others and touch things. I could not walk through walls, either.
No one realized who I was and I ensured no one would find out. I changed my name and my life story. I learned to fight with sword and bow. I joined in the war in hopes to die but no fatal wound killed me. I visited my father at night if I or he was near and let his guilt consume him as he begged for my forgiveness on his knees in front of me. I would say nothing and used my gift of being unseen to vanish from his sight and watch him suffer. I fought with his army letting him see me among his ranks before vanishing as his retainers were sent to look for me.
Then he died, killed in an ambush in Cilmeri. I visited the grave for his body and his head in London. I lived in London for the 15 years his head sat on a spike at the Tower. Then I left for Spain. I lived in Spain for many years before moving to France. After France, I went to Italy. I enjoyed Italy greatly and stayed for nearly 150 years moving from place to place changing my story and identity. From Italy, I received news of Wales and England's long war until finally, King Henry put an end to it.
At the end of the 1400s, I returned to Wales and visited my father's grave which had vanished from existence. My own tombstone still stood among a ruined castle and church. I had plenty of money by this time so I purchased the land and title of the ruins from the English. It took 10 years to do so, much bribing and even a meeting with King Henry. The king was all the sex fiend that the rumors had indicated he was. After a single night, the deed to the lands and title were mine along with the agreed sum.
I didn't restore the castle instead had the rumble cleared away leaving whatever ruins was still standing for the elements to do with as they wished. The church and graveyard I restored though I was not sure why. Perhaps I did not want the world to forget about me as I no longer existed as Aeronwen. However, who would know to come to this graveyard to find the daughter of the Prince of Wales who never claimed her until after she died. Who even remember the part I played in the battle for this castle? I had read the history books, my name was not inked.
Once the church was restored and a priest installed within its walls did I leave Wales for London. I did not stay long as King's Henry daughter Queen Mary poured blood through the London streets as if she was breaking caskets of wine. I returned to France for a time before moving back to Spain and stayed here for many years before finally traveling to orient countries.
I traveled to China in the late 1500s via Spanish trade ships. My status had increased since I had bought the titles in Wales and had gained titles in Spain, France, London, and Italy through the years I lived in each country. I had letters of introductions from many nobles from each of those countries and knew many languages by this point. In China, I was seen as a mysterious foreign noble and because of this, it was not long before I caught the Emperor Wanli's attention and was invited to the palace. I knew no Chinese so had to hire a translator who worked with the trading between Spain and China. I stayed in China through the three wars, two with Japan, siding with Korea and the third a rebellion. I visited Emperor Wanli many times through these years and gave counsel when he wished for it. He was a learned man and curious to learn about other parts of the world.
After the three wars were over I moved to Korea where I lived for most of the next 100 years, visiting Japan from time to time after the Tokugawa shogunate re-established relationships with Korea in 1609. I would stay for a few years before returning to Korea. I returned in the early 1700s to London as a decent of my last previous identity in the country. I had continued to receive correspondence from my many agents from time to time sending a death and birth certificate of my different identities and ensuring my holdings and lands were being taken care of. I traveled through my different lands and holding over the next years, remodeling, updating, renovating and re-establishing myself in different societies until I decided to make a trip to the Americas.
Here was another world entirely. I was a spy in the revolution against England. The war with had been was bloody and fierce but eventually victorious. I was surprised when the English lost for their history had many victories. I traveled the land far and wide as it continued to open. I owned slaves like everyone else though I treated my slaves well and even gave them a monthly allowance for them to purchase things as they liked though it took many arguments with the town for them to sell to my slaves, eventually I won. I sold my lands and freed my slaves when it was time for me to leave. I kept no properties in the Americas at the beginning though I maintained those I had across the pond.
In the 1830s the wars with the Native Americans began in earnest. I was sad to see the natives being hunted down like animals and pushed away from their lands. I had been staying with a tribe of Cherokees, even having a lover among them in the early 1800s. I enjoyed their culture and language and stayed for many years until I knew they would notice my non-aging face. I vanished into the night just before the Removal Act.
Then the civil war came about, a bloody fight of brother against brother. I stayed out of the fighting and lived in New York at this time. I listened to Emancipation Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln and wept at his passing.
After the civil war, I lived in the wild west for some fifteen years, as a male outlaw cutting my hair short though I killed no one. I was an evil spirit that couldn't be killed but also didn't kill. I stole from cheating governors and mayors and gave what I stole to those who needed it. A Robin Hood in the wild west. I even had a run in with Frank and Jesse James.
In 1870 I returned to society as a lady proper. I purchased land in Wyoming, Arizona, and Utah and I went to Yellowstone park when it was opened in 1872. I continued to purchase land in America and checking with my holdings in Europe through mail. I traveled once to Europe in 1901 to check personally on all my holdings and update paperwork and death and birth certificates. These had gotten harder and harder to do but through money and connections, I got the paperwork I needed.
I volunteered in the first world war and became a field nurse in Europe. After World War I, I went to medical school in New York and became a doctor. I was a field doctor during World War II in Europe as well. After the two wars, I settled down in New York. I saw Martin Luther King Junior's I have a dream speech in 1963. I went back to school and became a lawyer after President Kennedy was assassinated.
I lived quietly after the wars, switching identities every ten or fifteen years. I returned to college two more times, studying avionic engineering and education. I enjoyed education the most and continued studying until I had several doctorates in different studies.
I had been alive for seven hundred and forty-seven years. I had watched empires rise and fall. I traveled through Europe, Asia, the Americas. After the World Wars, I traveled to places I had never been to, Russia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South and Central America. I had even taken a trip to the Arctic one year. I had been a soldier, a noble woman, a translator, a nurse, a doctor, a lawyer, and a teacher. I had slept with a King and an Emperor and I spoke over 10 languages fluently. I was supposed to have died instead I had lived, oh how I had lived.
I look at my tombstone returning from my memories to the present. I had lived too many lives. I remembered every one as if it has happened yesterday. I had endured harsh illnesses that swept through the lands, I had been shot and stabbed, I had been in car and plane crashes and yet I had not die. Tears rolled down my cheeks as my hand rubbed the old, worn stone. The rage swept away by the chilly wind, I was tired, very tired.
"Os gwelwch yn dda gadewch i mi fynd adref. Gadewch i mi farw. Rwyf wedi byw yn ddigon hir. Rydw i wedi blino. Yr wyf yn awyddus i weld fy mam a thad. Yr wyf yn maddau i chi thad."
I pulled a blade from my coat which I wore against the cool night air. I pressed the blade to my stomach and ran it sharply to the side slicing my stomach as it had been done to me so long ago. I shifted so I could lean against my gravestone, blood soaking my sweater. I lifted the blade to my throat.
"Father, I forgive you. I love you. Release me," I whispered into the silent night and slit my throat.
The knife slipped from my fingers as I choked, my hands gripped the grass on either side of me as my blood pumped out of my body. I saw the castle gate before me, the sun rising as dawn shone over the land. I saw my father's men watching from the parapet then as darkness started to take over I saw a new figure emerge, a hand reaching out towards me and a single shout that rung in my ears as clear a church bell.
"FY MERCH!!!"
My daughter. I smiled softly as death finally wrapped its arms around me like a father embracing a child.
